


am not, you want

by dt3am (bigsleepsuperhighway)



Series: i'll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor [2]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Backstory, Character Study, Drabble, Fake Dream Team, Gen, Immortality, Temporary Character Death, also featuring sapnap as the human popsicle momentarily, hey dream what did you do today?, oh cool what was that like?, oh i dunno not much. i think i died & came back to life, thanks for asking! it fucking sucked!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:13:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28939053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigsleepsuperhighway/pseuds/dt3am
Summary: For days afterwards, you sit up in bed just watching, waiting, because you are always convinced someone is breaking in.And your house is so cold at night. And if you pay for heating youwillstarve.So. What do you do now? What's next?
Series: i'll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119194
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10





	1. sunset flip

**Author's Note:**

> FAKE DTEAM AU (gta!verse)
> 
> title is from a painting of the same name by torey thornton
> 
> pls heed the tws in the end of work notes!!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, a study in empty: houses, bedrooms, stomachs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is sorta loosely from 'hair match' by the mountain goats
> 
> ***MASSIVE disclaimer: dreams childhood/background is totally of my own design, and all family members mentioned are entirely fictional!! this is not meant to be offensive or indicative of actual experiences in any way shape or form
> 
> enjoy!!! <3

Let's say, for the sake of the argument, in a place not too far from this one, there's a birthday card on your kitchen table, and your mother's just closed the front door behind her; she's left in a hurry. You've just missed her. The birthday card has three hundred dollars in it, filthy twenty-dollar bills crumpled like tissue paper.

You know she's padding her guilt the same way you know she isn't coming back, like a deep, gnawing pull somewhere in your stomach; the same kind that took hold when you came downstairs the other day and saw that the picture on the mantelpiece was broken. The only one in the whole house where both of you were smiling.

It was coming. A slow, freezing descent, like sinking into cold water, even if you didn't see it. But you can't be blamed for that. What twelve-year-old boy thinks his mother's going to leave him?

Let's say you touch the birthday card, open it, pick it up like it's going to shatter in your hands. She's written on it,  _ I LOVE YOU. _ And then your name,  _ CLAY, _ just a little too far below the  _ I LOVE YOU _ for it to seem like they're supposed to be read together.

You take the money out and fold up the birthday card, and the sound of it is like a door closing.

And let's move the story along a little bit—let's say it's a door that never  _ stops _ closing. Let's say you hear the dull clap of it every time you blink, the slide-click, the weighted snap of the lock. For days afterwards, you sit up in bed just watching, waiting, because you are always convinced someone is breaking in.

And your house is so cold at night. And if you pay for heating you  _ will _ starve.

So. What do you do now? What's next?

Let's say, for the sake of that same sorely-won argument that leads you here now, you don't starve.

Right now, in this moment, you don't starve; you steal newspapers off your neighbors' porches on your way home from school to cut the coupons. You go to the store alone even though it sort of scares you—the inert coldness of it, the people shuffling through the aisles looking alien and wide-eyed—it's a place you know, but not by yourself. You look at the floor. You never spend more than fifteen dollars at a time.

And let's say you steal, too. Let's up the stakes.

So. You steal from the cafeteria. From people who pass you on the street; once from a friend's mother, even though you feel so bad about it afterwards that it keeps you awake for days. You stretch the money out over four months, five, and then you grow out of your only pair of shoes. Let's say you stop going to school and nobody notices you're gone, and on the six-month anniversary of your mother leaving you, you get sick.

Very, very sick. It's something cold, something fever, something night sweats and daydreams, and it's the kind of sick that keeps because you don't have any pills. Your mother's taken all the ones you had in the house. What kind of  _ take? _ Did she  _ take _ them or did she take them  _ with _ her?

You don't know. You don't remember. And her face—you don't remember that either, you think fitfully, tossing and turning all night, your sheets clinging to you like skin.

The morning after your fever breaks and gives way to the drumbeat of a migraine that lasts a whole month, you wake up and discover you were touching the birthday card in your sleep, reaching to where it sits on your bedside table. Like you were walking through a door. Like it was a mouth that would never close.

In the end, you stay sick. You don't have enough inside you to get better.

Let's say—for one last fight, one last bare-knuckle brawl in the dirt—you hold out as long as you possibly can. Let's say you spend a seven-month bulk of your twelfth year hungry, waiting, but the food still runs out before you know how to let it. And one day you're dizzy because you're sick and you haven't eaten in a week and you trip and fall and hit your head on the counter, and you seize for fourteen seconds and then die with your mouth open, tasting absolutely nothing.

Let's  _ say _ it. Let's say it for once instead of just thinking it, instead of pulling it over and over in our brains like taffy, like tonguing the space of a missing tooth just to feel the sting.

Let's say  _ fuck it _ and start telling the goddamn story.


	2. texas funeral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, a divorce from Southern winters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this 1 is hella short but i felt like posting it anyway, so i decided to tack it onto the end of dreams instead of making a whole new work. welcome to the fruity rumpus nontraditional narrative factory why do i keep writing these
> 
> title is from the song of the same name by hop along
> 
> check the end of work notes 4 tws
> 
> enjoy <33

They're all playing happy family inside, but we look away. Instead we decide to look at the little boy in the backyard.

See? There he is, look at him. If we look at him he's right there in front of us, just a ways out in front of this country home with a pickup on the drive, a rocking chair on the porch. Don't you see him? In the dark? He's lying outside in the snow. The grass is poking up all around him, the ground that dusky color where you know it's frozen without having to touch it, perfectly matching the sky, and he's not wearing a coat so he's shivering badly like it's a seizure, a hemorrhage in his brain. His wrists are thin enough so we know he's little, but his shoulders are wide enough so we know he's strong. Little steam engine. Puffing out cloudy air but can't make any noise.

This picture makes us wonder: why is he outside? Why is he lying in the snow? Is the shaking from the crying or the cold?

This picture makes us wonder: can we ask him? Can he hear us?

And there are people inside the house, too, we think. They're a whole different story, so many rooms full of possibilities to crack open, but maybe it's just that the windows are bright eyes and we only want what we can see. All the lights are on, and we look for what's inside. The little boy doesn't. Maybe he never was looking. Maybe he was looking and then stopped.

Anyway, we think about the people, even though we're looking at the little boy, we're worried about him. Inside they're playing the longest game, the longest game any of us have ever seen, and the game is called  _ how long can we all spend sitting and waiting before we stop thinking about the little boy outside, _ and everyone is trying to win. So we try to look at the little boy as hard as we can, like if we're looking at him he can be the one to win this time. If he can stop thinking about the fact that he's outside in the snow and the door is locked and the people inside are trying to stop thinking about him, he can pretend he's not freezing.

This picture makes us think: we are so sorry, little boy. We see you crying, we see the tears sleeting up on your face, we're so sorry. Inside they're playing happy family and bit by bit they're forgetting about you.

**Author's Note:**

> **ch1 tw/cw: abandonment, starvation, head injury, seizure, death**
> 
> **ch2 tw/cw: implied abuse by a parent, hypothermia**
> 
> drop me a comment if u enjoy the weird stylings & shit, or if u have any theories or smth!!! anything rlly, i read & respond 2 every single 1 so thank u <333


End file.
